Lone Wolf
by violet-phoenix-rose
Summary: Leah Clearwater has always been the loner of the pack. Change of format; now is multi-chapter. Please review. Rating might go up soon but not yet.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: This is Leah Clearwater several years post-BD.

I've always been a loner, but now more so than ever. For a few years I had my wolf pack, but they've all imprinted and decided to live ordinary lives. Something I can never do.

Look, I wasn't supposed to happen. I was the glitch in the order, the girl wolf, the mistake. There'd never been a girl wolf before – ever – and I highly doubt there'll be another one. I'm one of a kind, the guys used to tell me playfully. It felt a lot better then, back when they weren't all paired off.

I'll be lucky if I ever find someone who loves me for me, someone who doesn't mind that I'm a wolf inside. I mean, my luck with guys was bad enough BEFORE the wolf thing happened. Just picture what it'd be like to have to tell someone that you can shift into an animal form at will. My worst nightmare come to life.

Lone wolf, the guys call me. That's what I am, who I am, everything about me in two little words. I only pretend to dislike the nickname; in truth, it fits me too well.


	2. Section One

A/N: At the request of a reviewer, I have decided to turn this into a multi-chapter fic. One thing is different, though - from now on, it's Leah's journal entries.

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January 13

I am officially 21 years old today, and I don't happen to care. Apparently no one else cares either, because it's nearly midnight and none of my so-called friends has bothered to call me, send a card or an e-mail, or recognize my birthday in some other way. Maybe that's better - I'm on the edge of things usually - but I can't help wishing ONE PERSON had wished me a happy 21st.

Another reason no one seems to care is because it seems that every freaking person I know is getting married in June. By everyone, I mean there's a wedding every weekend of that month, and supposedly I'm going to all of them. In reality, I'm half-tempted to live a little and do something I've wanted to do for a while - go explore Europe the cheap, staying-in-youth-hostels way. I won't do it, due to having almost no money, but I probably won't be anywhere near Forks by this summer. If I get lucky, I'll be on the other side of the country, although I'm not sure how well that's going to work.

Having basically no family is probably good for me in the event that I get away from here. My father died four years ago, my little brother's at college in Seattle, and my mother is in a relationship with the father of one of my least favorite people on the planet. That's right, Mom's instincts led her to Chief Swan, and I'm not sure what to think. When even my mother is having better luck with relationships than I am, it's a sign something's not right with the world. Then again, when have things EVER been right with the world?

January 17

Three things happened today, one bad another good, and the third amazing. I'm starting with the bad one first, to get it out of my system. My charming 18-year-old brother, Seth, has apparently found, in his words not mine, someone he wants to spend his life with. I can't hate him for this, since he's my brother and all, but if I hear about another damned wedding I'm going to go crazy.

Thing number two concerns my summer, which will now be amazing. I have managed to get an internship in Chicago with a medium-size nonprofit. I leave home Memorial Day weekend and I won't be back until the end of August. Finally, a chance to be someplace where no one knows me, where no one has any idea what I am, where I'll get the chance to breathe. I called Mom when I got the e-mail this afternoon, and she's thrilled. Her reaction was along the lines of, "Leah, that's amazing, finally something happens for you!" She's right, I guess - nothing half this interesting has ever happened to me before.

Finally, thing number three. The Cullens, who I swear are my least favorite people EVER these days, have decided it would probably be good for them to move somewhere else. The amazing part of this, you ask? They're considering Canada, which is far enough away so far as I'm concerned. So long as I don't have to cross paths with any of them again, they could move anywhere and I wouldn't care. I won't miss them - well, maybe I'll miss Alice, if only because she warned me about the car accident I had the day after Christmas in advance. Maybe I'll keep in touch with her - there are perks to knowing someone who can see the future, even if all she can see in your life is disaster.

January 18

It's unlike me to be writing two days in a row, but I've been thinking it might be good to record exactly why I hate the Cullens. Really, there are three reasons - wolf-shifters instinctively hate vampires (except for my former best friend, Jacob, but that's another story), their being here is somehow RESPONSIBLE for my generation of wolf-shifters, and there's just something about them that unnerves me. I'm not quite sure what it is, but their "gifts" are somewhat frightening, even though they know better than to use them on me.

On that note, something else happened today. Out of the blue, Alice (who, as you remember, I don't hate) called me and told me to meet her at a coffee shop about half an hour from Forks. Since rule number one of dealing with that pack is along the lines of 'don't tick off the one who can see the future', I went, hoping she wasn't going to predict me getting hit by a semi truck or something equally tragic.

She didn't, of course. Instead, she told me something that I'm still having trouble believing, which is why I'm writing it down in her exact words. "Something good is going to happen to you," she said. "You're going to meet someone this summer, someone who will change your life. I'm not sure how it's going to work, but expect the unexpected and let me know what happens."

Scary thing about Alice #1: whenever she's not sure about something, it usually turns into a ginormo disaster. Take my absolute least-favorite person, Bella, as an example of what I mean. That girl's life turned into one disaster after another, and it didn't end after she got turned either. Even though Alice says she had a passing idea about some of that, no one believes her whenever she brings it up so she pretends it never happened.

So yeah, this may turn into the world's biggest nightmare, but at least Alice made it clear that whatever's going to happen will be good. Let's hope she's right.


	3. Section Two

January 30

I am extremely mad at nearly everyone I know right now. Forgive me for being angsty, but my life sucks in a way that shouldn't happen to anyone over the age of seventeen. For the first time EVER, I'm happy my love life is nonexistent - one less thing to get ruined, I guess.

The past week was like this: I'm going to be evicted from my apartment if my cat attacks one more person (accidently or otherwise, although the only intentional time involved the landlady - sucks to be me these days) and Seth's fiancée, Miranda, is officially on the list of people I hate. I saw the cat thing coming, but Miranda... I thought my little brother had better judgement than that, but now I'm not so sure.

The problem with Miranda is that she's one of those overly friendly types - you know, too bubbly for their own good. Seth brought her home over the weekend, and I was sick of her within five minutes. In fact, I had half a mind to ask him if there was a non-physical reason he likes that idiot. I didn't, in a rare moment of self-control, but that didn't mean I was a saint either.

So okay, I didn't exactly know that Miranda had decided I was going to be in the wedding whether I liked it or not. Nor did I know that Mom "forgot" to tell Seth I'm going to be in Chicago for three months. Given these two things, I soon realized that it would probably be good if I don't come back after the internship ends. But no, Mom says that I absolutely MUST be home during the second weekend of August. At least Seth stood up for me (for about the first time ever), so I have been demoted to being an usher, aka the only person at a summer wedding who gets to wear black. On second thought, usually that's the only female at a wedding who gets to wear black, ever.

February 5

I swear to God, if Miranda calls me one more time this month, I'm changing my number. THAT, I tell you, is the level of crazy that my brother's future wife is. She hasn't given up on me being in the wedding either, but that's the least of my problems when it comes to that girl. She's my polar opposite, and it's clear Seth hasn't told her about the wolf-shifting thing. I'm tempted to mention it - she might as well know what she's in for, and if she doesn't run there must be SOME good in her!

On a happier note, the Cullens have decided where they want to go - New England, for some obscure reason that I didn't happen to catch. The problem is they don't know WHERE in New England they want to be, which means that they'll move this fall AT THE EARLIEST! I am so freaking mad at them. The best news relating to this is that Jacob is going WITH them, which means I won't have to deal with his stupid attempts at restarting our friendship.

I might as well explain why I refuse to speak to Jacob Black, since I've already done a fair lot of ranting in this journal and nobody's ever going to see it anyways. I suppose we weren't close friends, ever, but somehow the whole imprinting-on-the-half-vampire-baby thing pissed me off and now I hate him. The fact that he was suddenly Bella's BFF didn't help EITHER (don't get me started on that girl, okay), but that wasn't quite it. The moment the fiasco involving the Volturi ended, I stopped speaking to Jacob. Really, I stopped speaking to the Cullens, but he counts as one of them for all practical purposes.

Okay, I break that rule a lot. Take Alice, for example. As much as I hate to admit it, she's the closest thing I've got to a friend, and she'd probably try to kill me if I pretended she didn't exist for more than a week unless I had a really good explanation. It happened once - me having to explain, I mean - when I went to Florida for ten days and decided for all time that I hate places with warm weather.

But anyways, Jacob just doesn't understand how annoying he is. Instead, he keeps trying to call me, talk to me, and otherwise restart a friendship that I'm not sure ever existed. He's even worse than Miranda, and that's saying something right now.

February 14

Ah, Singles Awareness Day, better known as Valentines Day. Those companies that create holidays came up with it as a celebration of love, but so far as I can tell it backfired. Instead, you have the one day of the year on which every single person in the freaking country is depressed. This usually includes me, but stuff came up today and I didn't have time to wallow in self-pity. Besides, I do enough of that already!

Work was better than usual, which was rather surprising. I work as a waitress at your stereotypical small-town diner, and all I can say usually is that it pays. Well, today was good because (a) I didn't have to serenade anyone with an obscure version of Happy Birthday and (b) I got enough tips to get something decent to wear in the unlikely event I have a reason to wear a fancy dress. Very unlikely, but at least I'll have it.

By the time I got off work, it was 4 in the afternoon and my phone started ringing immediately. Thankfully, it wasn't Jacob or Miranda (still my two least favorite people on the planet, although Miranda has given up on making me a bridesmaid). Instead, it was Alice, who told me to meet her at the coffee shop as soon as I could. Understand that Alice is the kind of girl where, if she says jump, you ask how high, so I went.

"You're a weird one, you know," she said in greeting. I jumped a little - she's the only person who can stand me sometimes, and that was an odd comment from her.

"What do you mean?" I asked, sitting down and drinking one of those chocolate-coffee-with-milk-and-sugar thingies, whatever they're called.

"What I mean is that it's odd that I can see your future," she explained. "I can't do that with the other wolf-shifters, not even Jacob. But you... You're a bit of a glitch, so of course things are different with you."

"Okay," I said, relieved that I hadn't screwed something else up. "Why are you mentioning this and why am I here?"

"I figured you might want to know, which is why I brought it up. As for why you're here... It's Valentines Day, you're single, and I figured you'd be free. I had a feeling you weren't doing too hot, given the holiday and all, and I thought you might like something to do."

"What exactly are you talking about?"

"I can't get anyone else to go to that new comedy film with me. If I wanted to see the action movie, they'd all be along for the ride, but sadly no one else appreciates the beauty of disaster comedy. You wanna come?"

I must admit that I had fun. I'm not much of a movie-watcher, but people in odd situations are entertaining, especially when they get out of them in THE most awkward ways possible. Too bad real life doesn't work that way.


	4. Section Three

February 27

I hate Miranda. The end. What happened, you ask? Apparently Seth explained the wolf-shifter thing to her, and she didn't freak out like I hoped she would. No, instead she did the _opposite_ - she thinks it's the coolest thing ever. A list of reasons I hate Miranda Kendall is as follows:

1. She didn't freak about the wolf thing.

2. She is blonde, tan, blue-eyed, tall, and skinny. In other words, pretty, which usually means evil (really long story there).

3. She still thinks I'm going to be in her goddamned wedding!

4. She keeps changing her mind about whether or not I'm going to be in the wedding. The cycle of events goes like this - Miranda decides she wants me to be a bridesmaid, Seth and my mother talk her out of it, she shuts up and doesn't call me for five days, she caves in and calls me and begs me to be in the wedding, and the cycle repeats ad nauseum.

5. Seth deserves better than her.

Basically, Miranda is now my least favorite person in the world, and she will keep that title till AFTER THIS STUPID WEDDING!!! Had to do the capslock thing, sorry - some days I can't resist wanting to yell, and that's the best way to transfer screaming onto paper that I know of.

March 7

Because I really needed more stuff to deal with - Seth came home last weekend WITHOUT Miranda (shocker) and spent most of it trying to explain to me that no, he is not going to get rid of her and there is nothing I can do about it. Being told off by your eighteen-year-old brother because you think his fiancée is a conniving bitch (which she is) feels really bad, let me tell you. Thankfully, he might have solved one of my problems for me - after I ranted for a while and he tried to calm me down (no luck), he was like, "if you shut up about how much you hate Miranda, I'll explain to her that pigs will fly before she gets you into a bridesmaid dress". Score: Seth 1, Leah 0. I intend to keep tallying the score between now and mid-August - something tells me it'll be a good idea.

On a slightly better note, Alice called me again yesterday afternoon - same place, same reason as the other times. "Remember the stuff I told you back in January, about your summer?" she asked after getting me a vanilla something-or-other (I can't spell or pronounce the name of it, but it was delicious).

"Do you really think I could forget?" I replied, knowing she didn't think that possible. The fact that I'll meet someone who'll change my life for the better is the best news I've heard in my life.

"Of course not," Alice laughed. "Things are a little clearer now. You, my dear, are going to find love while you're in Chicago."

I was on the edge of my seat. "Really?"

"Would I lie to you?" Alice asked, smirking at me. "Really, it'll be an unforgettable summer for you. Oddly enough, I will be in Chicago as well over the summer..."

"Doing what?" I asked, hoping it had nothing to do with me.

"Our clan's moving away from here at the end of May, and we're splitting up over the summer. We have established where exactly we're headed, but Rosalie didn't think that all of us being together during the summer was a good idea, and nobody in their right mind picks a fight with her - except for Jacob, but they'll never get along... Anyways, I've used a few connections and gotten a summer internship of my own - as a tour guide at a little-known art museum. It'll be an experience, that much is for sure."

I vaguely remember a strong instinct to start banging my head against a concrete wall after that. One of the key things that made me look into the Chicago internship in the first place was that it'd be totally vampire-free. No luck, I guess - then again, Alice is a much easier person to deal with face-to-face, and something tells me that the real reason she found the internship or whatever is because she's going to need to have a lot of conversations with me. Just my luck, huh?

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A/N: Finally updating this! Please review; constructive criticism and suggestions are very welcome.


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